Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 12.41
April 15, 2021
…consolidation, reflecting the challenge of getting to full autonomy. Waymo raised $3 billion, Xpeng Motors had an initial public offering (IPO) of $1.5 billion, and Amazon.com acquired Zoox for $1.2 billion in 2020. In January 2021, Cruise and parent company General Motors announced that they will work with Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform as they develop and commercialize self-driving vehicles. Microsoft joined GM, Honda, and other investors in investing $2 billion in Cruise. Last month, Cruise acquired Voyage, which has been working on technology to provide autonomous mobility in senior citizen communities. Autonomous vehicle companies accounted for more than $3.3…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 9.26
April 01, 2021
…have made early-stage, non-exclusive partnerships, including TuSimple and Traton, Waymo and Daimler, Aurora and Volvo this week, and Plus and SF Express. Embark said it decided in early 2020 to pursue a different approach with its self-driving technology. Trucking OEMs have a long tradition of offering vehicles with key components sourced from multiple suppliers, including engines, transmissions, and braking systems, in response to carrier demand. By developing a strong technology platform that can be rapidly integrated with the major brands, Embark claimed it will provide OEMs with autonomous technology that is most responsive to their carrier customers' needs. EUI works…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 4.81
October 09, 2020
…the technology. Google spun off its self-driving car company Waymo, which is working on self-driving trucks with the big truck manufacturers Daimler and Volvo. Switching to automated drivers will not only save billions, but it also has the potential to save thousands of lives. Crashes involving large trucks killed 3,903 people in the US in 2014, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and a further 110,000 people were injured. More than 90% of the accidents were caused at least in part by driver error. Driver fatigue is a factor in roughly one out of seven fatal accidents. Most…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 5.62
September 15, 2020
…In March, when the outbreak began, Venture Beat reported, “Waymo, Uber, GM’s Cruise, Aurora, Argo AI and Pony.ai are among the companies that have suspended driverless vehicle programs in the hopes of limiting contact between drivers and riders” (“Coronavirus fears halt autonomous vehicle testing”). In theory, the significantly lighter traffic during the shutdown seems to offer an opportunity to ramp up road testing, but in practice, the 6-feet-apart social-distancing requirements make it difficult to run tests even with the smallest possible team—two people. “Near-empty roads create an abnormal condition,” notes Sovani. “This is not ideal for testing, because you don’t…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 4.65
March 03, 2020
…and cost effectively. Companies developing autonomous truck technologies include Alphabet/Waymo, Embark, TuSimple and Starsky Robotics. Rather than fully replacing humans with fleets of “driverless” trucks, says De Muynck, a more likely near-term scenario will be to pair autonomous trucks with human drivers to extend range and lower costs. The human driver could handle urban environments and loading/unloading interactions, while the autonomous vehicle handles the driving for long stretches of highway. Assuming regulations over driver rest could be ironed out, this pairing of human drivers and autonomous trucks could keep assets rolling to effectively speed up transit times. In some regions,…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 7.60
May 01, 2019
…fed back into DRIVE Constellation Simulator, enabling hardware-in-the-loop testing. Waymo is using the Jaguar I-Pace SUV in its self-driving car test fleet. Image courtesy of Waymo. DRIVE Constellation is an open platform, and can incorporate many third-party world models, vehicle models, sensor models and traffic models. Recently, the Toyota Research Institute-Advanced Development, the R&D arm of the Japanese carmaker, has announced it will use NVIDIA DRIVE Constellation to test and validate its autonomous vehicle systems. Role of Simulation Modern passenger cars benefit from the cumulative experience of an industry that has been crash-testing for decades. To achieve a comparable type…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 5.79
November 22, 2018
…the development of autonomous vehicles. There is another combine, Waymo/Google/Alphabet, working out kinks in the technology. Lyft and General Motors are combining efforts. And of course, Tesla and its innovative CEO Elon Musk, the peripatetic Canadian-American business magnate, investor, engineer, and inventor are bullish. The U.S. chip-making giant Intel announced Monday that it had reached a deal to acquire an Israeli company called Mobileye for $15 billion. The combination is expected to accelerate innovation for the automotive and trucking industry and position Intel as a leading technology provider for highly and fully autonomous vehicles. So What’s Happening in Trucking? Last…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 20.05
November 22, 2017
…just stick with developing the intelligence for autonomous vehicles. Waymo, the self-driving unit of Google’s parent Alphabet, had a similar revelation this summer. That’s when it announced a pivot from developing its own self-driving cars to developing self-driving technology for cars mass produced by others. That resulted in the demise of the company’s Firefly self-driving car (no steering wheel, no peddles) - probably the first retirement from the autonomous vehicle race. In other words, we have to be aware of the difference between possibility and probability and pervasive. That’s true for individual suppliers in particular as well as autonomous vehicles…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 29.36
May 30, 2017
…it was spun off into a standalone business called Waymo. Earlier this year, Waymo filed a lawsuit against Uber, alleging that Levandowski stole some 14,000 documents from Waymo, and that the information became the technological basis for Uber’s self-driving cars. Levandowski had already stepped away from running Uber’s self-driving car project, with the company moving him to an operations role in late April. Uber has denied the allegations against Levandowski, and in the meantime has been trying to prove in court that it developed its own self-driving technology independently. Levandowski’s refusal to cooperate with those efforts was the reason for…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 9.88
April 24, 2017
…Google-owner Alphabet recently spun out its self-driving car unit, Waymo, into its own subsidiary. Apple was just granted a license in California to test autonomous vehicles. Ford and General Motors are also doubling down on creating autonomous vehicles. Now Amazon could be eyeing driverless car technology as a way to get items to people's doors faster, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. “Amazon.com Inc. has created a team focused on driverless-vehicle technology to help navigate the retail giant’s role in the shake-up of transportation, according to people briefed on the matter.” The initiative, still in its…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 37.80
March 17, 2017
…of a case filed by Google’s self-driving car project, Waymo. And the case, which alleges Uber’s autonomous driving system designs were created as the result of brazen theft by a former Waymo employee, doesn’t look good for Uber at all. Uber’s been roiled by one controversy after another - from allegations of sexual harassment, to video evidence of its CEO acting like a jerk, to the alleged use of a tool in the ride-hailing company’s app specifically aimed at subverting regulators - but it’s the lawsuit filed last month by Waymo that’s currently front-and-center. The suit, in essence, asserts that…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 9.36
March 15, 2017
…its self-driving car project into a new unit called Waymo last year, plans to start a ride-sharing service using semi-autonomous minivans made by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV as soon as the end of 2017. Volkswagen AG is rolling out Moia, a new division that will focus on ride-sharing and other mobility services. Mercedes already offers cars that can pilot themselves at highway speeds. Digital mobility services for automobiles will reach $2.03 trillion (1.9 trillion euros) in 2025, up from 860 billion euros in 2016, according to Sarwant Singh, a senior partner at the global market research company Frost & Sullivan.…
